In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

199 In 1994, the writer Petr Aleshkovsky gained instant notoriety with the nomination of his second novel, Life of Ferret1 (Zhizneopisanie khorka), for the Russian Booker Prize. Clearly influenced by Dostoevsky and Gogol, as well as the village prose writers, the novel recounts the troubled coming of age of the deformed Daniil Khorev (nicknamed Khorek or “Ferret”) amid the squalor and neglect of a decaying Russian provincial town, Stargorod, and his several attempts to find solace in religion, a reliable father figure, and the natural world. The Booker nomination brought the thirty-six-year-old Aleshkovsky to the fresh attention of critics, who hailed him as an important new voice of realism, magical realism, and postrealism.2 Several especially praised the author’s skill at reproducing the colloquial speech of the provinces and depicting the taiga, both of which they attributed to his gifts of observation on expeditions throughout Russia, some with his father, a noted historian. 11H lifeOfferretAndthe“mAnimAl” inPOst-sOvietrUssiAnliterAtUre josé alaniz Papa ran past, The ferret already lay there. On the ground the ferret lay, From Papa not trying to run away. My Papa right then and there he dragged that ferret home. He carried him home all the way By the paw, that Papa of mine. Happily I clapped my hands This ferret, I got my fill of him Made a scarecrow of him, with shavings stuffed him And clapped my hands some more. There you have him, my ferret, splayed out across the page sketched out across the page Right before you my ferret. —Daniil Kharms costlow nelson text4.indd 199 6/23/10 8:40 AM 200————JOsé AlAniz Aleshkovsky trained at Moscow University’s history faculty in the 1970s, though never completed his degree, opting instead for a career restoring architectural monuments. His projects included the Solovetsky Monastery on the White Sea and Moscow’s Spas Andronnikov Monastery. Since the 1980s, he has turned to writing and hosting a history program on Radio Mayak, releasing four novels, an autobiography, and a collection of stories. A bildungsroman about a “saintly sinner” in the Dostoevskian mode, Life of Ferret deals with the search for stability and meaning in a rapidly changing social milieu (the late/post-Soviet era) in which nation, church, and nature play critical—often opposite—roles. Aleshkovsky divides the novel into three parts; the plot of the first section (Daniil’s birth and adolescence ) is easily dispensed with in a few paragraphs. Daniil (ancient Hebrew for “God is my judge”) is born on January 14 (the Orthodox New Year) to an alcoholic wastrel mother, the eighteen-yearold Zoya (derived from the Greek zoe, or “life”), who had tried to abort the baby by leaping from the roof of a shed. After a difficult breech birth, Zoya’s maternal instincts never take hold and she continues her nihilistic carousing , neglecting to feed or attend to her son, who, Aleshkovsky strongly implies , suffers from fetal alcohol syndrome. At one point Zoya, in a drunken haze, drops the baby on the floor, stunting his growth and making him bowlegged for life. Only Daniil’s grandmother displays any kindness to the infant, caring for him while his mother is otherwise occupied: working in a food shop, drinking, and sleeping with men she barely knows. (The identity of Daniil’s biological father is never revealed.) Unfortunately for the child, the grandmother dies early in the story. Made a pariah by everyone he encounters, the young Daniil receives the nickname Khorek (due to his poor hygiene, antisocial behavior and animallike demeanor) from his childhood peers. Filthy, deformed, a poor learner at school, inarticulate, and unable to relate to human company, he prefers spending time with animals. He eventually uses his animal-like senses and dexterity to embark on a career of petty theft and pickpocketing. As he matures, Daniil develops an infatuation for the dullish Zhenka, often described as having “calf-like eyes.” After seeing her gang-raped by her boyfriend Moose (Sokhaty, literally “antlered”) and his cronies, Daniil coolly hatches a plan to kill the much stronger man. In this he easily succeeds , and he also brings into the bargain framing Moose’s associates Dove (Gulya) and Budgie (Chizh, literally “siskin”) for robbery. After this, Daniil flees Stargorod and heads north to the remote Russian taiga. These early portions of the novel establish Daniil as a modern-day Raskolnikov figure seeking out a moral compass in a confusing, fearsome era. But whereas Dostoyevsky’s hero is urban...

Share